


Double Shot

by shadowen



Series: Line of Sight [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Best Friends, Established Relationship, M/M, Nick Fury gives no fucks, The Shovel Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowen/pseuds/shadowen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second most awkward conversation of Clint Barton's adult life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Shot

There weren’t a lot of people who scared Clint. 

There were men whose faces had a permanent place in his nightmares, but the fear that woke him up shaking wasn’t of them; it was that they would come back, that all the miles he’d put behind him had been for nothing. Even so, if any of those bastards were stupid enough to crawl out of their graves and come after him, Clint would put each and every one of them back in the ground. No, he wasn’t scared of many people.

He was, however, scared to fucking death of Nick Fury.

The closest Clint ever got to standing at attention was when Fury called him into his office to discuss a... minor altercation that was entirely _not_ Clint’s fault and no one could prove otherwise. He kept his back stiff, his eyes straight ahead, and his mouth closed, waiting for the inevitable hammer of Fury’s wrath to fall on his head.

Fury looked up at Clint then back down at the incident report and sighed. “Agent Park needed six stitches in his mouth.”

Clint cleared his throat. “I did tell him not to touch me, sir.”

“And Agent Montoya had a dislocated shoulder,” Fury added. “No, I’m sorry. Make that _two_ dislocated shoulders.”

“Suppose I shoulda warned him, too.” So much for keeping his mouth shut. Fury gave him a cold look. “Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.”

Shaking his head, Fury stood, and Clint had to give the man credit; he cut a pretty intimidating figure. He gave Clint a scathing once-over. “Do you own any clothes besides that tacky vest?”

Clint blinked. “I’ve, uh, got a few t-shirts in my bunk.”

“Coulson lets you out in public in a t-shirt?” Fury snorted. “Man must be in love.”

“Well, he gets me out of it in private, so it all works out,” Clint replied and immediately kicked himself. 

Fury rubbed at his brow, frowning. “On the list of images I didn’t need. Alright, Barton, get into your civvies and meet me at the motor pool in five. You and I need to have a talk.”

Clint spent the next several minutes absolutely convinced that Fury was planning to kill him. It was a good plan, really. Drive him off base, execute him somewhere nice and remote, leave the body in a river or ravine. Nobody would question the director of SHIELD, and Clint would be just another anonymous homicide victim. He resisted the impulse to call Phil to say, _Goodbye. Your best friend’s going to shoot me. I think I kind of love you._

Therein, of course, lay the source of Clint’s fear.

Fury was a badass, no doubt about it, but Clint was pretty sure they’d break even in a fair fight. If Fury decided Clint was a problem, though, there wouldn’t be a fair fight. If Fury decided he wasn’t worth his keep or that he wasn’t good enough for Phil or just that he was a pain in the ass, he could snap his fingers and have Clint transferred, thrown out, killed, or simply erased and no one would think twice. Some people might even thank him. The men in his nightmares were ghosts long past, but Fury had a firm grip on Clint’s future and everything in it, including Phil.

That was the danger, Clint had learned, in holding onto anything worth having: there was always someone with the power to take it away.

At the car, Fury told him gruffly to get in and then didn’t say another word. Clint, normally inclined to fill up silence, followed his lead and sat quietly in the passenger seat, adamantly _not_ fidgeting. 

He was honestly a little surprised when Fury drove toward the city instead of out into the boondocks, but the pending execution scenario regained its traction when they pulled into the upper level of a parking garage. SHIELD vehicles were unmarked, couldn’t be traced back. Fury could just dump his body in the trunk and leave. It would take months for anyone to find him. Or he could make it look like a suicide. Just another nameless loser at the end of his rope.

Clint was sure Fury would at least make it quick. Well, pretty sure.

The last thing he expected was to be led down onto the street and into a small, nondescript coffee shop. The artfully stencilled glass door read _Espresso Yourself!_ in bold, swirly letters. Clint raised an eyebrow, but Fury just stared back and inclined his head toward the register expectantly.

Clint liked coffee. Coffee was essential to his daily function. Phil had once remarked that watching Clint drink coffee was like watching him cheat with a distinctly unattractive ex. Clint had, on more than one occasion, skipped the mug and gone straight for the pot.

And not a damn thing on that stupid chalkboard menu made one bit of sense to him.

He stood gaping up at it stupidly until Fury sighed and leaned past him. “I’ll have a grande caramel latte, two percent, double espresso,” Fury told the bored-looking barista. “My friend here doesn’t know it, but he wants a tall Americano.”

Clint decided Fury really was going to kill him. Only he was going to die of embarrassment, and it was going to be slow.

It turned out that a tall American, or whatever the hell it was called, was pretty much exactly what he wanted, and it was totally worth scalding his mouth on it to avoid the awkwardness of watching Fury stir sugar into a massive cup that smelled like cheap candy.

The silence stretched on. Clint cleared his throat, but Fury didn’t even glance up until his grande whatever was sweetened to his satisfaction. Then he laid down the tiny spoon, looked Clint square in the eye, and said, “Agent Park is an asshole.”

Clint blinked. “Sir?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Fury went on. “He’s a good agent. Sharp instincts. But he’s a tightass jarhead with delusions of self-importance and the personality of rancid white bread. Now, I don’t know what he said to you, but I’ve seen the security tape. Man made a grab for my weapon like that, I’d punch him in the mouth, too. Especially a stuck up little redneck like Park.”

Clint couldn’t have said it better himself, but he wasn’t entirely sure where this was going. “So...?”

“So I’m not gonna take you out back and shoot you, Barton. Relax and drink your goddamn coffee.”

It was still too hot, but Clint took another swallow obediently. After a moment, he ventured, “Can I, uh, ask what this is about, sir?”

“You can drop the ‘sir’, to start with,” Fury told him. “This isn’t an official conversation, and I’d feel a little uncomfortable discussing your sex life with you calling me ‘sir’.”

Clint absolutely did not choke on his coffee. “Tell you the truth, I’d feel a little uncomfortable discussing my sex life with you, period.”

Fury snorted. “Tough shit, Francis.” He ignored the glare Clint gave him and went on, “You’re getting your sugar from my wingman, and we’re gonna talk about your intentions.”

“My... intentions?”

“Now, Coulson’s a grown-ass man, and he can stick it wherever he damn well pleases. You’re pretty limber, too, so I figure he must be having a good time, there.” Clint could feel his face heating up, but Fury wasn’t finished. “Most of the time, he’s got a good head on his shoulders. I trust his judgement. Sure, he’s got a type, but he’s not one to go crazy over a hard case with sad eyes and a nice ass.”

“Thanks for noticing.”

“Shut up. The thing is....” Fury leaned forward and levelled a finger at Clint. “The thing is, he seems to think you’re something special, something worth sticking his neck out for, but I’m not convinced.”

Clint bristled. “So this is, what? You telling me I’m not good enough for him? ‘Cause that’s not exactly news.”

Fury frowned. “We were in the Rangers together, been buddies since bootcamp. He’s the only person on the goddamn planet I’d trust with my life. Barton, _nobody’s_ good enough for him.”

Clint looked down, scowling at the black surface of his coffee. “Especially me, though, right? That’s what you’re saying.”

Fury sighed and sat back. “Christ in a coat, he said you were smart.”

At that, Clint glanced up sharply. “Coulson said I was smart?”

“Sharp as motherfucking razor, he said. Focused. Good eye for strategy.” Fury took a sip of his drink. “Said a lot of things. Good things. But so far, all I’ve seen is that you’re a damn good sniper and you’re probably not an asshole.”

“I am kind of an asshole, actually.”

“Shut up. How much do you know about Coulson?”

“What?”

Fury looked at him like he might be a little dim and repeated slowly, “How much do you know about your _boyfriend_.”

“I know he’s never said the word ‘boyfriend’ where I could hear him,” Clint said. “I know his birthday, his serial number, his ID code, his social. I know all the overrides on his apartment security. I know his passwords. I know where he keeps his guns, how he takes his coffee, how he likes his sex. I mean, what do you want from me here, Director? You think I’m a security risk?”

Fury rolled his eye. “Barton, if I thought you were a security risk, I’d have you sitting in a tree in Illinois taking pot shots at domestic terrorists. What’s Coulson’s favorite color?”

“Aubergine.” Fury gave him a skeptical look, but Clint shrugged. “Things you talk about when you can’t sleep.”

“Fair enough,” Fury allowed. “Favorite book?”

“ _Watership Down_ ,” Clint answered, “but, if you ask, he’ll tell you it’s _Gravity’s Rainbow_.”

“Pet peeve.”

“You want a list?”

“Name one.”

Clint grinned. “People who talk on the phone at the checkout. Rude people in general, but mostly that.”

“Good one,” Fury said. “What about his family?”

“One dad was a journalist, died about ten years ago. Biological dad was FBI-turned-SHIELD, lives just north of Chicago.”

“You met him?”

“No. No, I haven’t.” 

“Good,” Fury said. “That man is a holy terror. Good guy, nice as hell once he decides he likes you, but he’ll put you through the goddamn wringer. I’ve known Coulson going on twenty years, and in all that time, the one boyfriend that met his dad ran screaming for the hills.”

Clint shifted in his seat. “Yeah, it sounds like they’ve got some issues to sort through.”

“Not that they ever will.” Fury huffed. “Coulson’s a damn near immoveable object, and his old man’s just a stubborn son of a bitch. Both of them are too goddamn smart for their own good.” 

Clint’s dad was a stubborn son of a bitch, too. He was also a coward, a bully, a mean drunk, and long since dead and buried in the cold Iowa earth. Clint didn’t think his childhood had a lot in common with Phil’s. “You done quizzing me, now?”

“Yes. Now I’m gonna tell you something, and you’re gonna keep your smart mouth shut for five minutes and listen.” He paused, as if waiting to see if Clint had anything to say to that. “Phil Coulson is a good man. Best I’ve ever known. He’s the guy to jump on a grenade while everybody else runs away. This kind of job tends to beat the feeling out of most people, but not Phil. He’s not here because he’s a born soldier or because he’s got something to prove. He’s here because that man is loyal down to his bones, because he wants to save the world, be a hero. He’s here because he wants t-”

“He wants to be Captain America,” Clint finished.

Fury gave him a satisfied look. “Exactly. And sometimes that big ol’ heart of his gets ahead of his brain. Now you, Barton, you’re the kind of guy that someone with a big heart might want to try and save, except they’re only human, so they might wanna fuck you, too. And wanting to save somebody and fuck them at the same time isn’t the same thing as being in love or some shit, but it’s real easy to get them mixed up.”

Clint didn’t ask if that was what Phil wanted. He didn’t want to know. “I don’t need anybody t-”

“Shut up. I’m not finished. Now I know what he thinks is going on with this...” He waved a hand vaguely at Clint. “...thing. I want to know what _you_ think.”

Clint narrowed his eyes. “And if what I think doesn’t match up to what he thinks?”

“If that’s the case,” Fury replied, smiling, “then we’ll have to discuss your options.”

Clint swallowed. What if it really didn’t match up? He’d been pretty straightforward with Phil about what he expected, what he wanted, and what he’d gotten had been so much more than he’d hoped for. But what if Phil was looking for something else? What if he’d just said what he thought Clint wanted to hear, and told Fury how he really felt?

Well, Clint hadn’t been a liar yet, and he wasn’t about to start now. “I think I don’t know what’s going on. I think we’ve got a good thing. It’s good for me, anyway. It’s fucking great for me, and I don’t see anything that says he’s not pretty happy with it, too. I think I don’t know how long it’ll last. _If_ it’ll last. Most good things I’ve had have gotten screwed up pretty bad, and some of that’s my fault. But I think.... No, I _know_ this is good, and I’d like it to keep being good for as long as it can be.”

Fury regarded him silently, and Clint pressed on. “Maybe I am just a hard case with a nice ass. And maybe he really does just wanna save me and fuck me. Fine. I’ll take it. Because you’re right; he is a good man, and it’s a goddamn privilege just to be in the same fucking room.”

For a moment, the silence stretched on, and Clint held Fury’s eye, unwavering. Finally, Fury told him in a flat voice, “You break his heart, I really will take you out back and shoot you.”

“If I break his heart, you’d be doing me a favor,” Clint replied, and Fury nodded.

“That’s good to hear.” He gestured at Clint’s cooling mug and took a sip from his own. “Finish your coffee. I wanna talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”


End file.
